When I just feel like not doing anything at the office, and would rather rant on and on about the most useless things, I go here....
Work Related Reads
consumer product safety commission
duty rates
toy industry association
toys of the year
the toy guy
american society for testing and materials
No, sir...This is work related.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Keeping in Touch...(or the lack thereof)
No, this is not the latest addition to my "picked last in gym" and "what if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?" black t-shirt with white type family, but is instead the focal point of this divagation (i suppose i'm allowed to use words i've already looked up, i just won't look for big words anymore) in that being so far away from everyone, the standing of my relationships to those in Atlanta seem to hang in the balance of phone calls, instant messenger conversations, and email, the last being more or less of a way to more or less spill my thoughts out to an individual or group, but the thing i don't like about email is that if you call someone on the phone, odds are very high they have an answering machine, and you just know that they'll hear your message, and in instant messenger (at least on AIM, which i admit to using), people put up away messages all the time so you know they're not there and they'll read your message when they get back, but in email, you don't really know if the person you're sending an email to even uses that email address anymore, maybe they don't have internet access, or they've grown up and don't use 8inchmanmissile@yahoo.com or sExYcRaZyGuRl6969@hotmail.com (for the record i think i've made these names up and i honestly hope these are even too lame for the average American high schooler to use), but maybe they're like me and still filter through all the junk mail that tells you how to have the most amazing sex ever, mortgage your home, or see the latest unofficial celebrity sex video, hoping to find a real email from someone you inadvertantly totally forgot about and rekindles in your head all the good times you used to have, but aside from all that, i don't like not knowing whether or not the person i sent an email to has actually read said email, and it's not like the not-knowing at xmas where you're stoked trying to figure out what all your presents are before you open them, but a really sucky kind, and i don't like it.Monday, November 24, 2003
After the way last week ended you would think that it couldn't get much worse and, well, it couldn't, and today doesn't seem so bad in retrospect and for that matter most things don't ever look so bad in retrospect and maybe i just miss
days where i could lounge on my couch and watch cartoons, but the word retrospect makes me think of the Jetsons which is kind of funny because i always thought Elroy was so cool, even though he was a nerd, but i was a nerd too, so that's probably why i liked him, kind of like how all the loser band geeks thought they were cool when the movie Drumline came out, but i was one of those band geeks too, and now that i think about it i was conditioned to be a nerd: i was always really short, i had weird hair that i slicked down to try to fix my cowlick but never worked, in elementary school i was always the kid that asked for more work, i only hung out with other smart kids and we thought our jokes were so much funnier than everyone else's, i took all the smart kid advanced placement classes, and i went to an engineering school, but back to the point i don't think the reason i think of the Jetsons when i hear retrospect is anything very deep or of a philosophical nature, but mostly just the fact that the retros- part is kind of like Astro in some weird dyslexic way, or i'm just dumb.Friday, November 21, 2003
i should begin by apologizing for yesterday for my tone as it is not my usual nature to ramble on or divagate in such a notme manner and on that note i believe apologies would be a most perfect topic for today and though i have discussed apologies many many times in the past, the time has come.....what the hell am i doing?
see? this is what i was talking about the first day. i think it was something about how people try to reinvent themselves or try to start over whenever they do something new.
and i'm doing it again. any body who has talked to me, i mean actually sat down and talked with me knows i'm not like this. yes, i actually do use those big words in my regular everyday conversation. not divagate, but that's my point. i started getting a kick out of impressing people with my "big" words.
i am so becoming that huge list of adjectives i wrote yesterday about status -- that i'm better than other people because i can use megalomaniacal and ethereal and diatribe in a sentence. look, i did it again.
and if you think about it, who am i honestly going to impress by using those words? as if you'd come and visit and overhear people talking about me at a restaurant "oh that's steve. he said i was the epitome of pulchritude, whatever that means." if people don't understand the meaning or the uses of the words we use, what sense is there in communicating at all?
and like i said before, by reinventing myself i'm just showing how i'm still not happy. and not like i'm sad cuz it's cloudy outside. i'm talking about how i'm not happy with me, and that i'm pretending to be something that i'm not, something i thought i could grow into. but happiness is not like an older brother's hand-me-down pants. it's something that no one can give you, that you have to get yourself. it's going to the store and buying your own damn pair!
oh well,it's the weekend. maybe i'll be someone else by the time i wake up on monday morning. yeah, someone else, as if that would make all of life's problems disappear.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
relating back to a subject i touched on yesterday, status drives me nuts and what i can absolutely not stand are people -- especially guys -- who feel that they have to have the best of everything: the best clothes, the best cars, the biggest muscles, the coolest friends, have gone to the best schools, have been on the coolest vacations, have the best house, are the best athletes (best, coolest, smartest, strongest -- damn words that end in -est) because it's that archetypical egotistical, pompous, self absorbed, narcissistic, megalomaniacal bastards that i see everyday and i, to use the phrase loosely, pray to god that my character, my behavior, my thoughts don't ever even come close to anything of the sort else i would be so overwrought with disgust at what i'd become for i know i could never truly be happy with myself if this happened and in fact clandestine amdist this disgust lies sorrow or rather pity that i feel for them knowing that they are constantly searching for that next thing whatever it is that makes them feel better than all the rest, that next thing and then the next thing and then the next and it's a neverending cycle that they're stuck in and they're not even themselves anymore but an automated machine searching for that unatainable ecstasy, a robot that lacks emotion that lacks feeling and doesn't even realize that they're not human anymore.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
in the two days since i've started this, i've mentally created an evergrowing list of issues to discuss ranging from a question that has haunted me lately as to who in fact sets the standard and who decides that their standard is in equal measurement to those that are to live up to it where i can't just set the bar so high that no one could ever be standard or so low that everyone is above standard because standard is synonymically congruent to normal or ordinary or run of the mill, to past relationships which include but are not limited to aquaintances and friends and how people often settle into a relationship whether by convenience or necessity or insecurity that they can't do better, communication or the lack thereof that wedges itself into most relationships whether that relationship in itself is intimate or not which includes the everpresent evanescence of friendships over time and since jaymi has already expressed her thoughts on this subject thus essentially calling cyber-dibs on the topic consequently eliminating the opportunity for me to discuss my relevant views in this forum, i shall adhere to the rules i have set for myself as to not merely comment on something someone else has said but in fact create a topic all my own knowing that in perhaps when i feel enough time has passed those same cyber-dibs would essentially be null and i can stand atop my soapbox and pass my sentiment out upon whosoever chooses to read but i am honestly tired right now having come in to work early at 7 and still be here now, 12 hours later in a day full of "i need this now"s, "would you mind doing this for me"s, and "get for me"s and will consequently double my efforts tomorrow having ample time to add to the ocean of ideas in my head.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
when people ask the question "why are we here?" and it's always meant to be so philosophical and spiritual and basically rhetorical (actually, rhetorical would be the wrong word because it implies a question where the answer is already known, it's a given, and to use it here would be to totally wrong on my part and a better word choice would be unimaginable in that it goes beyond the grasp of one's imagination -- thought to have no limits and expand infinitely in all directions) because no one can truly comprehend the complexity of the question and it's always followed up with "how did we get here?" and it too is so far beyond any individual's grasp of understanding and ultimate awareness that it's basically just a conversation stopper because nothing can be said that is worthy of an answer to such an amazingly complex query, don't they realize that when broken down it doesn't necessarily live up to the ethereal and metaphysical stature commonly given to it but in fact is actually the opposite in that it is so incredibly simple everyone overlooks it's true meaning, it's common denominator status, that they have essentially cancelled it out and thusly pay no more attention to it than a remainder in elementary long division and instead should realize it's simplicity, it's commonplace answer and understand that in fact the supposedly unimaginable answer to the question is just that "we are"?
and as a second day's rambling i consider myself done, in that the first day should be "special" and should be in a way that would make the first not necessarily the best but good and of a proper length that creates or sets the mood of ramblings to come, and so staying merely to one topic is not my way of saying that no occurences of any important value to me are occuring, but in fact i have essentially limited myself to a single post, a single thought of the day, more or less, and that should be good enough for me, and like an everlasting gobstopper, everybody has had one and one is enough for anybody and so the precedent is set not to have an expectation that what has happened in the past should show itself in the future again and that an unhappy person is always looking for more while the happy person is one who is content with what they have.
Monday, November 17, 2003
so this is it. the first rambling of the "new" me (as if i was ever really sure what the old me was like).
i was halfway through writing a huge long diatribe on the ultimate demise of people who try to run away from their problems, and that in some way i too was ultimately destined to face the same result due to my move to california and the ties i have that will never actually let me leave Atlanta and how said problems would snowball into something monstrously disasterous and that for a second i thought i would never be happy living away from everybody i know in Atlanta, but then i realized that i didnt know anybody when i first moved there and yes it was horrible for that first year, and most of the second but then not so much of the third and the fourth wasn't quite as bad and by the time the fifth year had come around i was pretty happy where i was so i shouldn't think that everything would fall into place in the first six weeks in a place where i don't know a single person in a city of millions, where i don't have a job where i know how to do everything before it's even been explained to me the first time, where i don't know the good parts and bad parts and ok to drive with your windows down but you wouldn't want to stop in parts of town, where i can't be doing something totally innane and utterly stupid and say "hey look at this" and have my best friends that i've known for years watch me and think to themselves how totally innane and utterly stupid whatever i was doing was which, sure, there are people walking around all the time and they're probably thinking that it was both innane and stupid but i haven't known them for years so they don't count.
and since i've been here driving around seeing all kinds of awesome places and driving by people doing all kinds of awesome things and not having someone to turn to and say "dude look at that, it's awesome" not to mention the fact that i have the most ultimate of all zenlike and relaxing features of the earth being the pacific ocean at my doorstep which leads to all kinds of internal delving and seeking inner truths and whatnot, i've realized that i've never really been happy anywhere or with anyone else because i never let myself be happy with anyone or anywhere else and that every failed relationship i've ever had has been the result of the same not allowing myself to be happy and the feeling i've had where every place i've called home since i was 13 has never actually feeled like home because i never let myself feel like it was home and everything i've ever done that seemed spontaneous was in fact totally opposite in that yes, it was just thought of a split second ago, but i've already thought about what good or bad could come out of the choice we make, and the good or bad that could come out of any number of possible permutations of any choices that resulted from that initial choice so in fact it was never really spontaneous and i've decided that i've spent my entire life being led by my head and not my heart and everything doesn't have to be figured out and only in the past 6 months have i realized this and only in the past 6 months have i had the faith that things will be taken care of whether by some preternatural force or myself or someone else it doesn't matter but something will be done to resolve any situation and only in the past 6 months have i found myself being truly happy.
i've also been truly scared that everything i've done hasn't really amounted to much that means anything to anyone but myself but in that sense i know there are people who'll say "so what?" and that as long as something is important to me that's all that matters, but there are also people who'll agree with me and say i haven't really done much of anything substantial but i don't really know who to listen to and i'd make it easy and say i listen to myself and don't follow anyone else's rules but that's a load of crap because though i do listen to myself, i also listen others and on goes the battle of what should i do how should i feel and this really isn't going anywhere but somewhere in here is my point and it is that a part of me is scared that i'm not the same person i was two months ago and that i've changed because i have the opportunity to change and the same way that many people change when they transition from high school to college and reinvent themselves, i've been reinventing myself every couple of years every time my family moved, every time i started at a new school, every time i made a new group of friends, every time i had a new job, and i'm left wondering where under all this bullshit that i've put people through is the real me and i'm scared because i don't know.
Friday, May 10, 2003 - I took an online personality test to determine what my inner child was like.
Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - I decided I really wanted to relocate for my new job somewhere far away from Atlanta
Monday, February 10, 2003 - I decided I wanted a job that would pay enough money so I would be able to pay rent.
And it happened: I got a job making toys, in Malibu, California, and they pay me enough that I can pay rent (even at the inflated costs of Southern California living). Funny how things have a way of working themselves out.
Starting over never seemed so good...until I actually did it and realized starting over meant a whole lotta work...pantloads even.
